Re: parallel port finally obsolete?

Dave

My reference to the Mac was mainly to say that I am not intimate with PC hardware and only slightly so with Windows. I have been lurking on the sidelines of CNC for some years now, and there was a brief moment when it seemed that motion control might become platform-independent, similar to (slow, but ongoing) developments in 3D CAD. However, that never materialized, and I accept that the PC dominates machine control.

A few years ago it did seem to me that there was a movement away from using the PC as a pulse generator via non-sanctioned Windows trickery to development of an external black box with USB and/or ethernet input and 4 or more axes of step-and direction output, as well as various I/O. Pulse generation would take place in the black box on hardware designed for the purpose. It appeared that things were moving in the direction of plug-and-play, which suited my Mac sensibility (or some may think, weakness). Motor drivers might or might not be incorporated within the black box, depending on the product, but that was largely irrelevant to the concept.

Having not been so closely following developments in the last year or so, I was wondering if such a black box had been perfected, and if motion control software had been adapted to it. From the responses so far, I have to conclude that the answer current is: still in development, by no means standardized; and furthermore not everybody sees the need - despite the disappearance of parallel ports from new computers.

Steve

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "turbulatordude" <dave_mucha@...> wrote:
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> I think you will find that any usb with driver boards can only work with that manufactures software.
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> those offerings are very limited in options.
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> also, the mac is not mainstream in CNC.
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> If I can read between the lines, you are looking for a direct, computer to motor drive that works with a mac, and does not use a BOB, but has the motor drivers on-board with the usb or eithernet or firewires or other serial interface that you can get with a mac.
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> is that basically what you are looking for ?
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> Dave
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> --- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "scyvt" <scy@> wrote:
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> > Thanks everybody who replied to my original question.
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> > However I'm not sure that a central point of my query was noticed: I asked about USB-to-motor (stepper) driver hardware, not USB-to-BOB. (Ethernet would be OK too). So Smooth Stepper, for example, would not meet that requirement. I think Flashcut has one, but I believe it is dedicated to their whole system. Kflop might do that, but it doesn't seem suitable for beginners. Geckodrive attempted something incorporating this function and much more, but abandoned the project.
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> > Steve
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